Share

Journal

Lots of interesting comments and questions coming in (and Holly still hasn't made up her mind between Smith and Bryn Mawr. Personally, I'd love an excuse to visit Northhampton, but then, I'd also love an excuse to visit Philadephia, so I'm just waiting for her to pick. Several people sent me messages rooting for one college or the other, and they've all been passed on to her. If you think you've got a tie-breaker, send it to me and I'll pass it on). Anyway, deadlines are not my friends right now, so the various things I was thinking of blogging will remain unblogged.

Instead I shall point you at http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/002481.html#002481 over at Patrick Nielsen Hayden's journal. Go down to Terry Karney's reply. It made me think of this Observer article on blogs and the war (which I actually found simplistic, or perhaps just badly subbed, with the most interesting bits of the article, the bits that pointed to the way that every shade of opinion can be found on blogs, along with information that you probably won't get from orthodox news-channels, being in there at the end). Terry Karney's report from Kuwait gave me more of an idea of what it was like on the ground than any number of "The atmosphere here is electric. You can almost taste the anticipation in the air..." TV reporter air-fill. (My father, who was in the British Army, doing National Service as a young man, once described war to me as "long periods of waiting around, punctuated by an occasional brief confusion of violence, which was what the waiting was for. Then it all goes back to waiting again". And I thought that probably that was probably how it was for the Roman troops marching through Britain two thousand years ago...)

I thought I would pass along some praise for Dame Darcy--she's touring in March and April and she still has a few stops to make as she heads west for home. I caught her here in Chicago and she read a story from her book FRIGHTFUL FAIRYTALES called "The Queen of Spades" about a graverobbing woman who is likely to murder dogs, meet ghosts, and lapse into comas. She also brought out her banjo and sang some sea shanties and murder ballads, accompanied by her guitarist Skippy. She talked a little bit about her comic book projects too, which include the swell MEAT CAKE and a forthcoming graphic novel called GASOLINE. It's the kind of thing readers of your blog might dig, so I wanted to pass on the info.

Is there a plan to add a search engine to the site? Nothing fancy just a simple keyword search and results page. Is there any reference anywhere to everything you, Neil Gaiman, have written in terms of literary criticisms, introductions etc. That is, a reference to work you've written that comments in print on the works of other writers?

If you look over to the left of this page you will see a little book with a magnifying glass with, beneath it, an odd sort of squiggly word. If you place your mouse-pointer on the book, it may turn blue, and the word should stop being squiggly and say SEARCH instead. Click on it, and it will take you to the search page.

In the "about Neil" section of the website is a bibliography; there are lots of introductions and articles listed. It's not complete, I'm afraid, but it's a good start.